AA-8000 rated aluminum (article 310)

Birken Vogt said:
The reason I asked; a quick search showed 1 or 2 posts of somebody who found CCA as original equipment in their early 70s house and was asking how to terminate it.

I've never seen the old original stuff either or know anybody who has. Maybe it was a regional thing? Maybe they won the lottery of the small population that is installed?
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It was added to the NEC as a permitted conductor in 1971, but have not seen it used around me.
 
don_resqcapt19 said:
It was added to the NEC as a permitted conductor in 1971, but have not seen it used around me.
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I never seen CCA that I can recall.

I do recall seeing lead sheathed cables mentioned in code and wondered where they are used.

Few years ago I was excavating around a gas station that been at the location for years, I actually dug up what looked like typical modern NM or UF cable but was two conductors embedded in a lead sheath. Something that had been abandoned but guessing it once ran to fuel dispensers, probably really old fuel dispensers? The ones there were like 1970's era units but were no longer supplied by this cable.
 
don_resqcapt19 said:
The use of aluminum for circuits 40 amps and larger is common in many areas. I am not aware of anyone making 15 and 20 amp rated aluminum conductors. I don't think they have been available since the mid 70s. However the is a push to use copper-clad-aluminum for 15 and 20 amp circuits.
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Homeowners insurance policy disclosures are requiring branch circuits to be copper so I don't know how anyone is going to get home owners insurance with an aluminum wired house. We used to switch to aluminum at 40 Amps until about 2019 when insurance companies began dropping people and we also started having problems with call backs for melted 50A receptacles on AL wire, now we stay with copper for all residential branch circuits and no more issues.
 
kwired said:
I never seen CCA that I can recall.

I do recall seeing lead sheathed cables mentioned in code and wondered where they are used.

Few years ago I was excavating around a gas station that been at the location for years, I actually dug up what looked like typical modern NM or UF cable but was two conductors embedded in a lead sheath. Something that had been abandoned but guessing it once ran to fuel dispensers, probably really old fuel dispensers? The ones there were like 1970's era units but were no longer supplied by this cable.
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A lot of the old underground cables and high voltage cables were lead sheathed as well as underground and overhead phone cables. There are cable engineers who still say that a lead sheath is the only waterproof cable jacket.

I did work on a transition between a single conductor lead sheathed oil filled conductor to a standard polymeric sheathed conductor. It needed a special crimp connector with a barrier in the middle to prevent the oil from migrating between the new and existing cable.
As as an apprentice I helped with pulling a 3 conductor, 750 kcmil, oil filled, lead sheathed, 15kV cable...about 12 pounds to the foot.
 
pipe_bender said:
Homeowners insurance policy disclosures are requiring branch circuits to be copper so I don't know how anyone is going to get home owners insurance with an aluminum wired house. We used to switch to aluminum at 40 Amps until about 2019 when insurance companies began dropping people and we also started having problems with call backs for melted 50A receptacles on AL wire, now we stay with copper for all residential branch circuits and no more issues.
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Have never seen that in any of my home owners policy renewals over the years.
 
don_resqcapt19 said:
Have never seen that in any of my home owners policy renewals over the years.
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Around here new policy applications, or even the renewal of existing policies require a bunch of home inspection items to be checked off one is for the presence of aluminum branch circuit wiring in the home. Another common one is knob and tube wiring, If it was not common in your area they probably don't check for it. Many people just check 'no' even if they have it.
 
Get a digital PDF copy of your policy, mine is like a million pages of babble, I doubt the average person ever reads or looks. Lawyers find it. I use CNTRL + F to search for the word 'Aluminum' : 1748377611831.png
 
pipe_bender said:
Get a digital PDF copy of your policy, mine is like a million pages of babble, I doubt the average person ever reads or looks. Lawyers find it. I use CNTRL + F to search for the word 'Aluminum' : View attachment 2577878
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Unfortunately as that is worded they could potentially reject a claim if you have aluminum service conductors or feeders that are say 4 AWG or larger even though those are not the type of aluminum conductors that are not much concern compared to 12 and 10 AWG solid aluminum conductors run to general purpose devices and landed by wrapping around a screw terminal.
 
don_resqcapt19 said:
Yes it was on the market for a few years around that time, but because of the reputation of the old aluminum, the sales did not support the continued production.
It was a good product...I worked on a 100 unit apartment complex in that time frame, and we used 10 and 12 AWG new alloy single conductor aluminum and we had no more problems with that wire than with other projects run in copper. All of the wiring devices were CO/ALR.
Not sure if they ever used the new alloy aluminum in NM cable in that time frame. The project I worked on was done in EMT because of local codes prohibiting NM if there was more than four units in a building.
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Ill stick with copper for now.
Dennis Alwon said:
This is from the 2020 Nec. I don't get it. It appears that all aluminum alloys must be made of AA-8000. Is your supply company selling some older cables?
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wwhitney said:
Agreed that per post #2, if it is stranded, and not "marked as Type RHH, RHW, XHHW, THW, THHW, THWN, THHN, service-entrance Type SE Style U, [or] SE Style R", then 310.3(B) does not require it to be "made of an AA-8000 series electrical grade aluminum alloy conductor material."

Cheers,
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electrofelon said:
The way I see it, if it is marked ONLY type USE-2, then it is NOT required to be 8,000 series aluminum. So isn't that where you have? Perhaps I misunderstanding? If you had the dual-rated stuff that's RHH/USE then it would need to be 8000 series.
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After much back and forth with the state head
of CID he stands with his decision. He agreed
that NEC excludes the 350 triplex USE-2 that I used. He also agreed that they could have done a better job of informing the supply houses about this abrupt enforcement of a special clause in NM state code. I have to
take a loss that will end up costing me about 5k in hassle and Wire.
 

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Nwood505 said:
Ill stick with copper for now.




After much back and forth with the state head
of CID he stands with his decision. He agreed
that NEC excludes the 350 triplex USE-2 that I used. He also agreed that they could have done a better job of informing the supply houses about this abrupt enforcement of a special clause in NM state code. I have to
take a loss that will end up costing me about 5k in hassle and Wire.
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I am so sorry for you to have to take that loss. It is unfortunate to say the least
 
Nwood505 said:
Ill stick with copper for now.




After much back and forth with the state head
of CID he stands with his decision. He agreed
that NEC excludes the 350 triplex USE-2 that I used. He also agreed that they could have done a better job of informing the supply houses about this abrupt enforcement of a special clause in NM state code. I have to
take a loss that will end up costing me about 5k in hassle and Wire.
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Wow so New Mexico amended their code I am very sorry for your loss that sucks.
One thing you might check is where your 'service point' is as only underground service conductors need to be listed not service laterals. So if your utility can take ownership of the wire it would be exempt. See the NEC definitions of 'Service conductors underground', 'service point' and 'service lateral'.
 
tortuga said:
Wow so New Mexico amended their code I am very sorry for your loss that sucks.
One thing you might check is where your 'service point' is as only underground service conductors need to be listed not service laterals. So if your utility can take ownership of the wire it would be exempt. See the NEC definitions of 'Service conductors underground', 'service point' and 'service lateral'.
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Thanks,
Yeah, it’s a customer owned service lateral. It’s coming from a new transformer that the the power co. has proved for this job. Running underground to an existing house that is on a 200A outdoor panel. I’m changing to 300A because homeowner is building a new wood/ cabinet shop and adding hot tub etc. It’s crazy but none of the Supply houses have the triplex that’s stamped EE-8000 and I need to have it shipped here at 3x what I paid for the other wire! Just have to move on.
 
tortuga said:
If its a 'service lateral' as in before the 'service point' (the meter) I would argue the NEC does not even apply.

Here are the New Mexico code amendments;
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Everyone agrees at this point that the 2020 NEC 310.3b doesn't apply to this triplex wire that I used for underground feed to a meter.
The NM electrical code does say all aluminum conductors must be AA-8000 rated.
 
Nwood505 said:
Everyone agrees at this point that the 2020 NEC 310.3b doesn't apply to this triplex wire that I used for underground feed to a meter.
The NM electrical code does say all aluminum conductors must be AA-8000 rated.
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All I am saying is you can argue your service lateral does not even fall under the NM NEC code, its on the utility side of the meter / service point. Your just installing it for the utility. After the meter yes AA-8000 rated.
 
tortuga said:
All I am saying is you can argue your service lateral does not even fall under the NM NEC code, its on the utility side of the meter / service point. Your just installing it for the utility. After the meter yes AA-8000 rated.
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"Customer owned service lateral" is a non-sequitur if the utility owns everything on the utility side of the service point. [Can the customer own some of the "facilities of the serving utility"? Seems like "of" implies ownership.] So I expect the OP meant "underground service conductors," not service lateral.

Cheers, Wayne
 
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